


1000 times i've seen you standing, gravity like lunar landing

by usingmyoxygen (keithsforeheadtattoo)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Community: inception_kink, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-17
Updated: 2010-10-17
Packaged: 2017-10-14 19:15:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keithsforeheadtattoo/pseuds/usingmyoxygen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>from the i_k meme: Five times Cobb tries to woo an oblivious Arthur, and the one time Arthur finally notices.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1000 times i've seen you standing, gravity like lunar landing

  
**i.**  


 

"So you're the one Mal told me about?" he says.

Arthur is a little terrified.

It's not that he seems hostile in the least -- in fact, he's laughing, and that's one of the key things Arthur remembers about meeting Cobb is that he's laughing at whatever conversation he'd just come out of, but in a light, noncommittal sort of way as though he's neither a part of one interaction nor the other. The thing that terrifies him about Cobb is the two- or three-second span in the aftermath of their initial, obligatory handshake; he introduces himself politely and there is a frozen moment where Arthur feels himself being sized up. He can almost see Cobb putting him together like a puzzle behind that analyzing squint and half-smile, and by the time he offers up his own name, Arthur is horrifyingly sure that this man is potently aware of every facet of his personality, even more so than Arthur himself.

"So you're the one Mal told me about?" he says with a slight inclination of his voice at the tip of his sentence; the fact that he even bothers to try and phrase it as a question is strange but reassuring.

Arthur just nods, falling into step with the older man and allowing himself to be led down a hallway.

"Said you were interested in something relatively long-term. And that you showed a lot of promise."

Arthur doesn't know what he'd shown Mal that she'd decided to relate to Cobb, but it certainly helps to dramatically increase his anxiety level.

"Promise?" he repeats, to clarify.

A smile creeps off Cobb's face, and in that instant Arthur can see something like the beginning of a loop go off in his expression. An old spark. A speech he's made so many times before he's forgotten how many people with promise and long-term interest he'd fed it to.

"We're interested in offering you something of a position with us. But before I describe this job, I have to know you can do it..."

\- - - -

Arthur walks out of Cobb's tests with seemingly less of a grasp on the job than he'd had before he'd heard a word about it. Just as he's pushing open the door, however, he hears his name and turns around -- Cobb is standing behind him, hands in pockets.

"Mal was right about you," he says, and the smile Arthur had seen the first moment he saw him makes a reappearance. "We'll contact you about the job by the end of the week, Mr. Callahan."

Flattered and increasingly confused, Arthur smiles.

"Oh, uh. Please. Arthur." he encourages.

"Fair enough," Cobb says. "I look forward to working with you, Arthur."

Arthur nods and turns to leave. He doesn't really process the last-minute wink Cobb flung in his direction; it had happened fast enough that Arthur immediately doubted it had ever really happened at all.

 

  
**ii.**  


Before Arthur can work any of the jobs he's been promised, first, Cobb asserts, he has to be trained in the field. Cobb says he wants Arthur to be an architect and Mal says she wants Arthur to be a forger and he doesn't know what either of these things mean in the context of dreams -- because he's found out by now that this is the common factor the jobs all share, dreaming -- he just knows that Cobb is the one training him and so architect training it is.

His first attempt is nothing short of awful. Arthur can't keep fully focused and the building he's trying to stretch starts halving itself again and again, teetering and falling into the street in pieces like massive toy blocks. The crowd closes in on him quickly and before he can register his failure, Cobb pulls out a pistol.

"Next time," he says, and Arthur wakes up with the sound of a shot still ringing in his ears.

"Jesus, you could've warned me about that part," he mutters, running a hand through his hair and catching his breath. Cobb just smiles and waves the flopping line of the PASIV at Arthur.

"Take two?" he offers. Arthur swears he can still feel a hole burning through his forehead, but the collapsing building is burning far more fiercely at the back of his mind.

The second attempt is better; the building doesn't stretch the way he wants it to, and it winds up tilting a little, Pisa-esque, but it stretches without falling apart and Cobb's projections seem significantly less irked. When he starts on the next building and the windows all flow out in streams of molten glass, Arthur gives Cobb a knowing glance over his shoulder.

"Next time." he promises.

It takes eight tries to get everything the way he wants it without a bullet between the eyes in the process. When he's done, the skyscrapers on either side of the street have been arranged in zig-zag lines by height like rising and falling staircases. When he looks back at Cobb, Arthur finds him beaming.

It's only the beginnings of a full dream structure, Cobb says, but he calls it "pretty excellent", and when they go on a standard run of navigating through a dream the next day, this is the landscape Cobb chooses.

\- - - -

"I didn't change anything," Arthur instantly defends the moment they re-enter his dreamscape; Cobb's projections are all eyeing him as they pass.

Cobb throws up one hand in a casual half-shrug, and the matter is ignored until later when they're navigating through a bookstore where Cobb has hidden a file of his own information as part of their drill. Mal has changed her mind and says she wants Arthur to go into extraction now, and Cobb figures he might as well run him through the motions of it.

The moment they enter, the projections all pause and stare at Arthur for a moment before returning to their activities, still shooting him furtive glances throughout. Compared to the ones outside, this is nothing monumental -- it's only when he goes up front to speak to the projection-cashier that things turn stranger. Before Arthur can get a word out, she puts one finger to her lips and reaches out her other hand, stroking his cheek. Unprepared and fearing the collapse of the dream, Arthur freezes. Slowly, she tears a piece of paper from the roll on the register and writes out something on it, folds it, and tucks it in Arthur's shirt pocket, which she pats gingerly before walking away.

"Was that the...?" he starts to ask Cobb, but when he turns around the other man is looking at the opposite wall, rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably.

Arthur draws the slip of paper from his pocket and unfolds it. It's a phone number.

He's confused but knows little enough about projections at this point that it doesn't faze him. Months later, after working enough jobs to know what he's dealing with, he looks back on this event with some skepticism, but by then the memories are too foggy to really recall.

 

 **  
** iii.   


It takes Arthur a total of four jobs to establish himself as point man. His first is a successful extraction, the second an architectural job that Dom tells him goes very smoothly, the third an attempt at forgery so catastrophic he switches back halfway through and winds up extracting in his natural form, and the fourth in the same vein as the first -- nothing too fancy, just lots of precision, and only requiring creativity when covering Cobb's ass. This is something Arthur swiftly discovers he is proficient at, and something Cobb sums up the value of in a brief, winded, post-job "sometimes I don't how I got by before you, Callahan."

The balance they've struck carries over into a comfortable friendship, but this doesn't seem to translate into ever doing anything outside of work. Not that Arthur particularly minds: he's more of the reclusive type anyway, and besides, there are a lot of things about this profession that don't necessarily mingle well with the real world.

Neither of them really inquires about the other's personal life at all; Dom mentions once that he's an only child, and Arthur enviously shoots back something about being the youngest of four boys, and that's all they've ever really discussed. Although Arthur deduces from Cobb's late-night shifts and dangerously frequent takeout consumption that he lives alone, he knows nothing else about Dom's life outside of work. It strikes him as doubly surprising, then, that when February rolls around -- the fourteenth in particular creeping up on him like some awful bug he'd trapped and forgotten about until finding it again, alive -- Dom is the one who brings it up.

"Another night of basic cable and soggy chow mein," he predicts with a bitter humor to his voice, tugging his coat on.

"Yeah?" Arthur smiles; attempts to prompt him further.

"How about you?" Cobb shifts the conversation, indicating a full quota for divulging his own affairs. "Good-looking young guy like you's gotta have plans for tonight?"

At this, Arthur laughs aloud. "God, no," he says, shaking his head.  
There is a moment of quiet, filled only by the sound of the briefcase clicking shut.

"Well." Dom says curtly from behind him with a little laugh.

Silence.

Arthur crams his laptop and its few accompanying cords into his bag.

"Well?" he repeats, sliding into his coat and grabbing for the handle of the briefcase.

There's another, shorter pause before Dom avulses a tiny, floundering, "I'm, uh... if..."

Arthur hefts the briefcase onto a table and turns slowly. Cobb meets his gaze only for a moment, then abruptly clears his throat, gives something of a flailing shrug in halfhearted explanation, and runs a hand through his hair.

"Goodnight, Arthur."

He's gone before the door has time to shut behind him.

 

 **  
** iv.   


Arthur remembers a job ending, he remembers Dom's hand on his shoulder, warm and congratulatory, and he remembers an invitation for drinks. He remembers the promise of a gin and tonic being the most worthwhile offer he'd accepted in a long, long time.

He remembers waking up the following morning lying the wrong way in his bed wearing one sock. And only one sock.

Arthur checks his phone to make sure he hadn't left any voicemails worthy of apology. He has one missed call from Dom and when he goes to text him and ask what he needed, finds a conversation he doesn't recall in the least.

The first three are all from him with no reply from Cobb:  
_so fucking drunk,, STILL  
god why did i even let y ou take me anywhere with alcoohol_

and twenty minutes later,  
_if i pass out before i clean the vomit off my roomates fcuking jacket im telling him its YOuR FAULT_

 

An hour after this is a text from Cobb; Arthur can't decipher if it's a reply or a standalone message.  
_Your eyess arelike the_

 

Arthur can't really decipher anything about the text except that the timestamp is a minute before the missed call.

 

 **  
** v.   


The job they're working on is a small one, only requiring one level and one person besides Arthur and Cobb. This one person is an architect named Margot Harper who can't seem to keep her mouth shut -- or her eyes off of Arthur -- for more than two minutes. Not that Arthur's really noticed. He hasn't talked to Harper much, and though she's certainly told him boatloads about her past and her hobbies and her three cats, he's hardly listened to her either. He's just never put much thought into the matter, but when he comes into work one morning to find a coffee waiting for him on his desk, Harper humming to herself nonchalantly in the background, he's not exactly surprised.

Arthur is unsure what sort of connotations that drinking the coffee would take on in her mind, but he is sure that he requires either sleep or a heavy dose or caffeine and he hasn't got a bed, spare time, or coffee of his own. Discreetly, he takes it, in the hopes he can finish it off without Harper noticing it's even moved, but sure enough, the next day, there is another identical cup on his desk in the same place.

They're going over the final touches of the dream's layout one morning when Harper scurries out to retrieve some forgotten folder from her apartment. Arthur sees this as his chance and eagerly downs the day's coffee in the course of about ten minutes. She does have surprisingly good taste in coffee, Arthur acknowledges but would never publicly admit.

Dom flashes him a questioning smile as he finishes off the dregs of it and sets the cup back in place so that it looks like he hasn't touched it.

"Harper," Arthur explains. "I've had these on my desk every morning for a week."

"Really? Maybe she's got the hots for you," Cobb postulates.

Arthur laughs. "Wow. Wrong tree," he says, casual, on the assumption that Cobb has long ago put together the pieces of Arthur's never mentioning girlfriends and fondness for musical theatre.

By the time the architecture for the job is finished and Harper is gone, Arthur has gotten accustomed to the habit of his morning coffee always arriving before him, waiting at the same corner of his desk. The fact that it still is even after Harper's left isn't something he analyzes.

 

 **  
** vi.   


Harper works with them for another job, this one a double-decker but still moderately easy based on the relative cluelessness of the mark. She doesn't show the same advances she had on the first extraction, though; Arthur is glad and yet her change in demeanor doesn't fully compute until he accidentally brings it up himself.

"You're awfully quiet today," he mumbles over his paperwork one morning before Cobb arrives.

Harper smiles, drilling precisely through a work-in-progress model structure. "Guess so, yeah," she admits with a laugh that's almost apologetic.

"I mean, you always used to... uhm. You were talkative." Arthur says, working against a sudden fear that his earlier remark might be construed as some kind of invitation.

She smiles again, this time with a tinge of wry reflection. "Yeah," she says, "I know what you're getting at. I mean, I was new here, I thought you were cute and all. But."

Harper shrugs with a what-can-you-do lift of her brows, flattening a path through her latest dreamscape. Arthur raises his eyebrows to match hers, finally drawing full focus away from his papers.

"I didn't want to step on anyone's toes." she finishes and promptly snaps a building in half to make two smaller ones, placing them on opposite sides of her paper street. Arthur opens his mouth to speak but closes it again in an instant, watching her build, particularly focused on the way she takes one skyscraper and starts to halve it again and again.

\- - - -

"I don't understand why anyone would..." Dom finishes his sentence with a laugh and a toss of his hands in the air. "I don't know. That's just her, I guess."

Mal, Arthur has come to understand from the snippets of fact among Cobb's tired rantings, invited him to a formal gala only to inform him that she already had a date.

"Go stag?" Arthur suggests, figuring this is something Dom has considered. The look he returns makes it quite clear that he has.

"She only told me two things she wanted me to do, I'm not about to blow one of them off. That's missing half of the requirements."

Arthur snorts, leaning back in his chair. "What was the other one?"

Dom shrugs. "Something about cufflinks." He lights a cigarette, tossing both the pack and the lighter to Arthur once he's finished.

"Don't go?" Arthur offers, fishing a cigarette out of the pack and sticking it in his mouth. Cobb rubs his eyes groggily and kicks his feet up onto the table.

"You're not being very helpful."

"You're not being very productive." Arthur flicks his thumb and index finger against the thick stack of printed research on his desk.

"It's twenty past twelve and the gala's tomorrow," Dom says, reaching idly for a nearby bag. Arthur, having lit his cigarette, tosses the lighter and pack in Dom's general direction. "I'm not producing anything but distinct failure."

Arthur can't think of anything to say to this, so he keeps his mouth shut. Cobb seems to take this as a signal, collecting his bag with an increased efficiency.

"I should sleep," he mutters. "I should go home and go to fucking sleep."

Arthur nods in empathy, taking a hearty swig from the coffee at his desk as he remembers just how few hours he'd slept the night previous. He looks up to find Cobb staring at him intently for a full ten seconds or so until he seems to shake himself out of it, heading out with only a cordial "Goodnight, Arthur."

Arthur stares into his coffee for a long time.

"Hey," he calls out finally, and Cobb turns around in the open doorway. "What time's the gala?"

"Starts at seven."

"Good. You know where I live?"

"...Well, yeah, I--"

"Good. Pick me up at six."

"You... I mean--I just... I thought..."

"If Mal's the one giving directions there's no way in hell I'll drive." Arthur says as though this were the explanation Dom is looking for and manages to keep his own expression calm as he watches Cobb's face transition from shock and confusion to a wary smile.

"Make it five." he says, and extinguishes his cigarette prematurely, grabbing for his coat. "We'll get dinner."


End file.
